Submitted by Former CUNY Grad, Dec 16, 2007 15:08

Has the above person ever taught 5 courses of upper-division and graduate courses? Most of the faculty at CUNY campuses, at least in my field, teach 4 courses and receive release time only to teach a graduate course the Graduate Center (where they advise doctoral candidates, which is incredibly time consuming). If they receive grants, then they get release time. The above writes as if the CUNY folks are privileged when in fact they work with every decreasing resources and a set of students who are definitely NOT prepared for college-level work. This means extra work with students during office hours, emailing assignments and working on drafts.

The standard research course load is 2/2. A 5/5 course load would squash any kind of intellectual work, publishing or innovative research -- you know, all of that intellectual stuff that fuels interesting classroom sessions.

As for online classes, that's not a solution for many humanities areas. Administrators would LOVE to see the classroom vanish altogether. However, students benefit from the face time with professors. Again, this is not a quick fix. The online environment is cold and technology is not yet available to all students for this type of classroom environment. (Does everyone have broadband and access to a web camera? Nope. This is the disenfranchised set of students, remember?)

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